http://www.watfordfc.com/page/NewsDetail/0,,10400~2641831,00.html I'm liking SD more and more after reading this. Yes we have relied on our youth product to get us thorough the last few seasons (as so it should be for all teams really). But with SD he is honest enough to come out to us (the supporters) and say "I'm picking this play because..." or "I've dropped him for a while because...". So often we are left to guess decisions of managers and this can lead to silly rumours about a players performance. As he has mentioned in the article some people will judge players far to early. I think we know which players he's referring to and I'm sure even professional players must be affected when being criticised by their own fans during a match. Hopefully he can get the best out of all our players, he's certainly going in the right direction .
While I agree with Dyche's general point on leaping to conclusions about players too quickly, I make an exception for loan players. Specifically, I judge loan players who go straight into the first team differently. If a lad comes here from a big club and walks into the first team within a week or two for any reason other than a genuine emergency, I expect him to make an immediate impact and will be harsh on him if he doesn't. If he turns it around then I'll gladly eat humble pie, as I have done twice in recent seasons, notably with Lansbury. By a genuine emergency I mean a game up in Middlesbrough where Loach is suspended, Kuszczak never came to Watford, Gilmartin is out on loan, Bond is injured and Bonham's teacher isn't willing to give him the following day off school.
Spot on sandy, Dyche has intelligence in that tough bonce of his. The way we're using youth this season is better than previous, not overexposing but working with them to introduce at the right time, looking forward to a decent runin. Whilst its great for loanees to come in and fit/make a positive impact from minute one its an unreal expecxtation without luck. If we are to continue to attract quality loans a little patience in this area is also required.
Stop me if I'm in danger of undermining the spirit of this thread, but Matty Whichelow is the one player whose last 12 months I'm at a loss to understand. I do get why he might not be having the season we were predicting: a lot of young pros go through a bit of second season syndrome and that's a perfectly normal part of development. Look at how sensational Scott Loach, Ross Jenkins and Lee Hodson were for their first few months, and the drop-offs they had after quite similar periods of time (the cycle was a bit longer for Loach, that's normally the way with keepers). But what I'm struggling to get my head around with Matty is just how tough he's finding it this year. There is still no doubt that he has the raw materials to make it in this division, and judging by the progress Hodson, Murray and Bennett are making I'd back Dyche to get him there. But he's gone from a player who looked likely to fill Buckley's shoes in August, to a player who has struggled to make an impact at (size wise) the League One equivalents of Watford. I'm not trying to write him off or put pressure on him, but I am surprised at the scale of his peaks and troughs.
Lots of reasons why a player can drop off, physical development us males go through periods where co-ordination goes and depending on the individual this can happen anytime up to about 25, it results in child/teenage projedies (spellcheck?) becoming flops sometimes, many times they make it through and the only cure is stay with it. Problems in psychology is often a major factor (anyone got adolescent offspring will understand), personal factors such as break down in long term relationships etc. As a parallel with swimmers we were developing for around 40 who look superb at age 11 by the time you get to 21 only 1 reaches full potential. In football academies the ratio is even worse and that does go on into first team career, look at Ashley, he wasn't the full beans early on and is now one of the countries best players it works both ways and its the clubs job to cast a wide enough net and work with the players as long as possible through the slumps until it becomes obvious the individual has lost it, mistakes are made but thats a case of not being able to accomodate everybody. Watfords policy has in the past been biased towards early physical developers, sometimes (in my opinion always) gives a sub optimal result.
